The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 11th and runs through Sunday, May 17th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 13 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team.
This is going to be a joint sign-up and update post, because a) I'm signing up late and b) I don't think I'll have time to update 100% properly every day and actually manage to read something.
I'm aiming for two books this week - not exactly a lot but I'm expecting life to get in the way more than usual!
Monday
Books I've read from:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Pages read today:
40 from Cinder
Books finished today:
0
Running total:
40 pages
Today #insixwords:
A decent, if quite small, beginning.
A decent, if quite small, beginning.
I only managed to read forty pages today, on the train home from work. I'd hoped for more, but it's a good start and I'm looking forward to getting further into Cinder.
Tuesday
Books I've read from:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Pages read today:
69 from Cinder
Books finished today:
0
Running total:
109 pages
Today #insixwords:
Migraines don't help the reading process.
I'm quite impressed with my 69 pages today. I ended up being sent home from work at 12:30pm with a bad migraine (lights, numb fingers, sickness, etc) and pretty much slept for eight hours straight. I felt a little better when I woke up though so I managed to read 69 pages in bed before going back to sleep.
I'm starting to get into Cinder now. It's not what I was expecting at all although it's been so long since I bought it, that that's only to be expected.
Wednesday and Thursday
Huh. This isn't going so well.
So this is possibly the least successful readathon I've ever taken part in and it does feel mildly disheartening. In my defence, I suppose I've never attempted one whilst working full (and over) time, whilst suffering from a bout of painful migraines. Let's go with that.
I am enjoying Cinder but I'm not sure it entirely deserves the hype. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it's not the mind-blowing epic read it was made out to be.
From Modern to Classic challenge:
Ranty Runt of a Reader has challenged us to think of which books (published post-2005) will be seen as a classic. She asked us to come up with one book, but I'm going to cheat a little and use one YA and one Adult book.
I think I'm just going to have to use the Harry Potter books for the first category. I can use this because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007 :) You know we'll still be reading them well into our 90s so the chances of us failing to pass on that love to our descendants isn't exactly high. Plus there's a hugely popular film series, which always helps.
The adult category is slightly harder. I toyed with picking The Night Circus or 22/11/63 but I don't know. I love those books but I'm not sure they'll be around in 100 years time.
After consulting my LibraryThing though, I eventually with The Song of Achilles. Firstly, stories about the Greek myths never go out of fashion - they've quite literally been around for thousands of years. Secondly, there's something in here for everybody which will help keep the damn thing in print. There's romance, action, tragedy, humour... I want to reread this already!
Great challenge Rebecca!
Honestly the least successful read-a-thon ever.
Can you believe in a whole week, any week, I haven't actually managed to finish Cinder? Much less a read-a-thon week. I just seem to have been either busy or ill for the majority of the week and haven't had as much time for reading as I'd like.
I suppose if one were being optimistic, one could point out that I have read more than I would have were it not read-a-thon week, which is the point of the event. I'll keep telling myself and and call it a success :)
I did spent Saturday in the company of Ellie and Katie, two of my lovely book friends. I'm going to write a separate post about it shortly, but I ended up finding a lot of my wishlist books in charity shops (which was amazing) and eating lots of cake in various coffee shops. Well worth missing out on reading time!
Migraines don't help the reading process.
I'm quite impressed with my 69 pages today. I ended up being sent home from work at 12:30pm with a bad migraine (lights, numb fingers, sickness, etc) and pretty much slept for eight hours straight. I felt a little better when I woke up though so I managed to read 69 pages in bed before going back to sleep.
I'm starting to get into Cinder now. It's not what I was expecting at all although it's been so long since I bought it, that that's only to be expected.
Wednesday and Thursday
Books I've read from:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Pages read today:
99 from Cinder
Books finished today:
0
Running total:
208 pages
Today #insixwords: Huh. This isn't going so well.
So this is possibly the least successful readathon I've ever taken part in and it does feel mildly disheartening. In my defence, I suppose I've never attempted one whilst working full (and over) time, whilst suffering from a bout of painful migraines. Let's go with that.
I am enjoying Cinder but I'm not sure it entirely deserves the hype. Don't get me wrong, I like it, but it's not the mind-blowing epic read it was made out to be.
From Modern to Classic challenge:
Ranty Runt of a Reader has challenged us to think of which books (published post-2005) will be seen as a classic. She asked us to come up with one book, but I'm going to cheat a little and use one YA and one Adult book.
I think I'm just going to have to use the Harry Potter books for the first category. I can use this because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007 :) You know we'll still be reading them well into our 90s so the chances of us failing to pass on that love to our descendants isn't exactly high. Plus there's a hugely popular film series, which always helps.
The adult category is slightly harder. I toyed with picking The Night Circus or 22/11/63 but I don't know. I love those books but I'm not sure they'll be around in 100 years time.
After consulting my LibraryThing though, I eventually with The Song of Achilles. Firstly, stories about the Greek myths never go out of fashion - they've quite literally been around for thousands of years. Secondly, there's something in here for everybody which will help keep the damn thing in print. There's romance, action, tragedy, humour... I want to reread this already!
Great challenge Rebecca!
Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Books I've read from:
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Pages read today:
91 from Cinder
Books finished today:
0
Running total:
298 pages
Today #insixwords: Honestly the least successful read-a-thon ever.
Can you believe in a whole week, any week, I haven't actually managed to finish Cinder? Much less a read-a-thon week. I just seem to have been either busy or ill for the majority of the week and haven't had as much time for reading as I'd like.
I suppose if one were being optimistic, one could point out that I have read more than I would have were it not read-a-thon week, which is the point of the event. I'll keep telling myself and and call it a success :)
I did spent Saturday in the company of Ellie and Katie, two of my lovely book friends. I'm going to write a separate post about it shortly, but I ended up finding a lot of my wishlist books in charity shops (which was amazing) and eating lots of cake in various coffee shops. Well worth missing out on reading time!
I haven't read The Song of Achilles, but your reasoning made me want to go pick it up. You've taken a very smart method to picking your books - Greek myths have been around forever and they are constantly retold in new forms, but those retellings often become classics themselves. Thanks for participating in the challenge, and I hope your readathon goes well - no more migraines, they don't help one bit!
ReplyDeleteGood answer for the challenge - I couldn't think of anything DESPITE combing through various 'best of the decade'-type lists on the internet, so I had to skip that one. Oh well... You did really well, especially with the migraine and the working and the shopping and the recovering from shopping. It wasn't my WORST Bout of Books ever, but I didn't do fantastically well - but it helped focus my reading a bit when I DID feel like reading, which is always nice. Not long to wait for the next Bout of Books anyway - maybe August will be better? :)
ReplyDeleteAh, see this is my worst by quite a long stretch. I've never failed to finish ONE book before. Oh well, sometimes life just gets in the way.
DeleteThe next one is in August? Wow, I didn't realise it was so soon.